Panama’s Jewish community staged a three-day visit this past weekend for Rabbi Berel Lazar, the chief rabbi of Russia, in an event organized by Kollel Torah Panama under Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Menachem Mendel Shuchat. The program was presented as a celebration of Torah study and communal strength, and it culminated in a historic moment of unity as outgoing and incoming community leaders appeared together.
The visit began with morning prayers at the Beit El synagogue with students from the local metivta, followed by tours of educational institutions. At Torah Or boys’ school, students greeted Rabbi Lazar with the Russian niggun “Nait Nait Nikav,” after which he offered words of chassidic teaching and praise to the staff. He also visited the Beit Yaakov girls’ school, addressed the city’s large Talmud Torah, and delivered an שיעור on the role of Jewish women to about 50 women at the Dornbush family home.
On Friday night, students of the yeshiva tested themselves on Bava Kamma before Rabbi Lazar, together with Rabbi Aharon Leib Lain, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi and chief shaliach Rabbi Avraham Pargan, and Rabbi Shuchat. The main event came Motzaei Shabbat with a Siyum HaShas and semikhah certificates, hosted by Rabbi Shuchat. Yosef Yitzchak Rabinovitz completed the Shas, having begun serious study in Moscow, and his father, Rabbi Shalom Dov Ber Rabinovitz of JLI, took part in the ceremony.
A reception earlier drew Panama’s chief rabbis, communal leaders, the Israeli ambassador and consul, and other public figures. The Shabbat included talks, classes, prayers, and a shared havdalah, and on Sunday Rabbi Lazar met in the office of Rabbi Eliezer Silveira, Panama’s new Sephardic chief rabbi, who is due to assume office in the coming days. Later, he spoke with dozens of Yeshiva Ohel Torah students from Borough Park spending summer session in Panama, encouraging them to study harder and blessing them to merit Jewish homes in Israel. The visit also included the wedding of a family friend from Italy, and it ended with participants saying they left spiritually uplifted and determined to keep expanding Torah life in Central America.
